The Breakfast At Tiffany’s fundraising team (of which I am a member) are participating in Frocktober to raise money for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation.
The challenge is to wear a frock or skirt every weekday of October. So us Ladies will don our frocks, stockings and heels.
Please follow my journey, as I post evidence of my Frocktober adventure.
If you would like to support the cause, please donate.
Yesterday was my 29th birthday. I’m not the biggest fan of parties or celebrations, but my 29th has been a 3 day celebration and I have been reminded of how lucky I am to have such a fantastic family and so many amazing friends.
The birthday celebrations kicked off on Sunday, with most of the girls (unfortunately some weren’t able to make it) frocking up and heading out to Hadleys Hotel for High Tea. As my aunt Gerie shares the same birthday, this was a bit of a joint birthday event. It was lovely to sip cups of tea and nibble on a lovely selection of little cakes and other sweet things. It was really nice to sit down with so many friends and just relax and enjoy each others company. It was also really lovely to have an opportunity to wear a pretty frock. By the time I went home I was a very happy little duckie, with a belly full of sweets.
As it is tradition to bring something in to work on your birthday, I spent Sunday afternoon baking. I baked 36 cupcakes. With my late start on Monday morning, my friend Kat came over to help me ice all the cupcakes before heading to work. So my colleagues who work in the same area as I do, and my Computer Science students all got to enjoy vanilla cupcakes with pink icing, topped with a chocolate freckle.
Since the high tea was just for the ladies, I didn’t want to exclude my male friends, so a few people popped round on Monday night to wish me a happy day. We all sat around chatting, and enjoying a few nibbles. My friend Kat (who always sets out to spoil me rotten) made a chocolate cake topped with chocolate ganache, so we all got a slice of rich, gooey chocolate cake & it was delicious!!!
Since I had 3/4 of a chocolate cake left over, I brought it in to work on Tuesday (my actual birthday) and again, the staff loved it!! A few of my colleagues had missed out on the cupcakes, so they got a chance to share in the birthday food. There wasn’t enough to go around to the class though. But out of guilt for giving one class of kids cupcakes, I had thought ahead and brought tim tams to share with my class on Tuesday.
Tuesdays are usually a very long workday for me, but we had Quality Assurance meetings with other teachers of our subject in the afternoon, so my evening class was cancelled and I got an early minute. Lucky for me, because I was exhausted and went home to have a nanna nap.
Another birthday tradition, is to go out for dinner with the family. So Mum, Pat, Anna and I headed out to Piccolo in North Hobart for an AMAZING meal!! We shared some entree’s: seared kingfish with fried octopus; and chilli crusted calamari with some salad. As a main I had ricotta gnocchi with Huon valley mushrooms and it was absolutely delicious! I also had a little taste of Pats suckling pig, Anna’s swimmer crab ravioli and Mums fish (can’t remember what type of fish it was). I was very impressed.
Once I finished up my meal, I said I could probably fit in dessert, but Anna quickly persuaded me that that was a bad idea. I had a sneaking suspicion that she had an ulterior motive.
So we thanked the staff for some lovely food and head back to Pat and Anna’s house for a cup of tea (the new tea that P+A got me for my birthday: Madagascan Vanilla). I sat down to drink my tea when Anna brought out the birthday hat and plopped it on my head. The next thing you know, Pat and Anna came out with a HUGE cake. It was a Ben Lomond cake, which had the ski tow Giblin running up it and a skier at the top about to zooof down the slope! This cake was also a chocolate cake, with a buttercream icing and a few extra lollies sprinkled about. Served with ice cream, it was a fantastic way to end my birthday!!!
And if you hadn’t already guessed it, there is plenty left over, so my colleagues will once again benefit from my birthday as we will have had pre-birthday cupcakes, birthday cake and post-birthday cake!!!!
A birthday observation…almost all of my birthday cards have butterflies on them, are butterflies ‘in’ at the moment?
So thanks to everyone for all the lovely facebook messages, text messages, visits, hugs, cakes and presents. I have had an AMAZING 3 day birthday!!! (thank goodness theres a few weeks before the next birthday, I don’t think I can possibly eat any more cake!)
So let me just say … Brrrrrrrr!! It’s cold! Its winter here in the town of Hobart, and maybe its just me, but it feels like the coldest winter we’ve had in a long time. I wake up, look at the weather forecast and see a top of 13 degrees, and thats on a good day!
After dragging myself out of bed, having a hot shower and rugging up for the day, Pip and I head outside for her morning wee and we look out to see that Mt Wellington has a beautiful dusting of snow. All this snow makes me want to head to the ski fields, and for the last two weekends, thats exactly what I have done!
The weekend of July 9th, I packed up and headed to a friends place. Leaving Hobart in the dark at 6:30 am I sqooshed myself in between the car seats of Lily (1) and Elsie (4) as the Batchelor family and I went on a grand adventure to Ben Lomond.
After driving for around 4 hours we got to Ben Lomond Ski Village and were faced with a very strong icy wind, and a beautiful snow covered mountain. Unfortuntely the high winds meant that the ski tows would not open as it was too unsafe. Not letting this dampen our spirits we all got kitted out in our ski gear and headed to a sheltered area for a few test runs on the skis and some hard core tobogganing.
Elsie was lucky enough to borrow a pair of gumboot skis from another ski club member (gumboot skis are little plastic skis with straps that you tighten over your own shoes – typically gumboots as they are waterproof). So Elsie started to learn the way I learned. She stood between my legs and wrapped her arms around my knees, while I help her under the arms. Together we whizzed down village road.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEi9R-HOAjQ
She’s certainly a keen little one, I actually had a decent amount of speed and she loved it!!! Her mum Esther was a little more apprehensive, as you might expect. I have got to say that kid shave no fear, they are incredible. Once I got tired of lugging skis up and down the hill, Elsie had a crack at tobogganing with her new friend Magnus. Together they zoofed down the slopes, with the occasional crash landing.
At some point flat slopes weren’t challenging enough, so they found a drop off to do. So we built it up a little so rather than dropping straight down, there was a bit of a down ramp (it was still very steep). Together these two keen monkeys attacked the ramp.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBpScJ3eosQ
For a 4 year old passenger and 7 year old driver, I would have to call this extreme tobogganing!! I also have to admit that I, as an adult, would have found this terrifying!!! Good thing they didn’t ask me to demonstrate!
We spent most of the weekend going indoors and outdoors and indoors and outdoors. When indoors we needed to make good use of the time, so Elsie, Magnus and I made snow cones and vanilla cupcakes.
The cupcakes were a big hit! They did a fantastic job putting in the ingredients, stirring the mix and then licking out the bowl.
When it came time to ice them we ran out of icing pretty quickly, and they took the first available opportunity to lick their spoons. We topped them off with chocolate freckles. Yum Yum Yum!
After an action packed weekend in the snow we headed back home. It was an absolute blast and we can’t wait to do it again!!!
So the following weekend, July 15th, I packed up all my gear and together with my friend Mark, headed back up the mountain. The snow report was good, weather forecast also good…couldn’t wait to see it for myself!
We arrived in the evening so we would have to wait till morning to see what the mountain had in store for us.
Lucky for us, by the time we got to the lodge my brother, Pat and his wife, Anna were cooking dinner. So we were invited to join them. We had a lovely evening sitting around chatting.
At 7am I was bright as a button and ready to get up and see what the day would have to offer. So I got up, got ready, had brekky and we headed straight out to buy a lift ticket and organise some ski gear and a lesson for Mark.
While Mark was in the enormous queue at ski rentals, I headed straight for the summit. The conditions were just fantastic, slightly crispy but otherwise a good cover of perfect snow, and a sunny blue sky day. I spent the first half of the day skiing Summit on the front of the mountain and Bills on the back.
Pat, Anna and I did a few runs together, Anna got some cool pics and video of Pat and I doing some little jumps on the rollover. It was so nice to carve up the slopes, with some big sweeping curves and then to tear down the slopes with the wind rushing past my face.
By lunchtime Marks lesson was finished, so after a quick snack, it was time for the beginner to hit the big slopes!! We started with one or two runs down the baby slopes, before heading up the summit and across to the back of the mountain. I’m pretty sure Mark was terrified at this point in time. But the best way to learn is with a challenge!!!
Pat, Anna, Mark and I spent the afternoon on Bills. I did some runs with Mark, then some runs with Anna and some more challenging runs with Pat.
Pat and I walked over to the back of Giblin and had a crack at skiing the chute. It wasn’t fantastic, but it was fun (until Pat crash landed). It was a fantastic day, we skiied our butts off until the tows closed.
Back at the lodge we had some wine and nibbles, and as we were all completely wrecked from the big day of skiing, we all piked pretty early.
Having had an early night, my eyes popped open at 6am. While I wasn’t quite bright as a button, I did get up. I saw an amazing sunrise across the valley, and then headed to the kitchen to make cupcakes.
In case you were wondering, no I don’t make cupcakes every tiem I go up the mountain. Its just that at the time I figured it would be a good way to keep the kids occuspied if the weather was bad, and then there was a special price for buying two packets. So thats just the way it worked out.
So anyway, I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing, and decorated with pieces of mini mars bar. One of the annoying things is that, at altitude thigns don’t quite cook the same as they would at home. So when I thought the cupcakes were done, I stupidly turned the oven off. Then realising they were sagging, and still gooey, I turned the oven back on and cooked them a bit longer. In the end they cooked ok, but were a bit saggy in the middle.
In the afternoon when packing up to go home, I grabbed the egg carton..and realised I forgot to put eggs in the recipe!!! Funnily enough that might have helped the cooking process..ooops!! at least everyone still enjoyed them and didn’t even notice the absence of eggs.
So by the time the cupcakes were all done, people started to get up for the day. This was when I got the chance to wish Pat and Anna a “Happy First Wedding Anniversary”. To celebrate they had a cupcake breakfast!
By this time I was all set to hit the slopes once again. It was another fantastic day. Although we all noticed we were a bit more sluggish than the day before. The weather wasn’t quite as spectacular, it certainly wasn’t miserable, but it was a little windy and cloudy from time to time.
By about 2pm, we celebrated the fact that we had had a FABULOUS skiing weekend, but we were now tired and ready to go home. So we packed up and headed back to Hobart.
Since I bought a season ski ticket…I have many more snowy times ahead. (Don’t expect to read about all of them though)
I am thoroughly looking forward to my next adventure. My mumsy and I are heading off for a 3 week adventure around Vietnam and Cambodia. We are doing a bunch of tour modules, as well as having a bit of chill-out time.
We start our travels in Hanoi, from there we will check out Ha Long Bay and the Mau Chau Hill Tribes. Then we fly to Hoi An, where we take it easy for a few days. After soaking up some culture we fly to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) where we tour around the city and the Mekong Delta. Then to wrap up the trip we fly to Siem Reap, Cambodia to check out the temples, markets etc.
So in preparation for this three week adventure, I have done much planning…
Also, the when I was in china I bought a new travel mascot. I think its a lion..but its kind of hard to tell.
At the moment he is attached to the front of my day pack along with the Beijing olympics mascot, Hai Bao, and my heavy duty luggage tag.
The only problem is, he doesn’t have a name. Please help me out….
So tomorrow is a day of packing, and then Mum and I jet off on Sunday mornings red-eye flight. Wish me luck!!!!
Being a teacher certainly has its perks. When the Easter break came along I decided to head to Utopia for the week.
Utopia is a family shack that we bought at the start of 2011. The sign on the front of the shack labels the building ‘Utopia’ and from the rumours I hear, it is bad luck to change the name…so Utopia it is!
It is very much a classic old shack, crappy brown carpet, walls and ceilings that aren’t perfectly flat, and a bathroom you have to go outside to access. It is perfectly charming. As a family we have been there many weekends slowly getting the shack ship-shape. The plan is to rent it out as holiday accommodation, as well as enjoy it ourselves. So in bits and pieces it is slowly getting there.
I spent my week doing a few odd jobs but mostly just unwinding after a stressful start to the teaching year.
To start with, being the Easter long weekend, some friends and family also had time off. So my brother and his wife, as well as my friend Yvonne came up and spent a few days at Utopia. We mostly just spent the time lazing in the sunshine, reading great novels, walking along the beach and through the bush and kayaking in the Swanport river.
On a few occasions Yvonne and I also popped down to the local bakery to enjoy a coffee and some food – we timed this well with our friend Em who works at the bakery, so that we went just in time for her lunch break. We also found a few opportunities to visit the local tavern for a drink or two with our friends Em and Dave.
When the water was calm I took the sit-on-top kayak to the beach (all of 50 metres away), put Pippi in her lifejacket and went for a paddle. It was so relaxing to be out on the kayak, with the water glass, the sun out and complete silence. Pippi wasn’t overly fond of these outings, but I don’t think she hated it too much.
When I wasn’t out on the water or reading a book I was doing odd jobs about the place. I filled in some holes in the doors where door handles had been changed & painted over them, I pulled plants out of the bush garden to form a little path from the back of the shack to the back gate, and another one to the shed, I cleaned. Then I had this fantastic idea!!! Towards the back of the block is an open sunny spot that is kind of flat and I decided it would be a fabulous spot for a sunset deck. I had lots of old timber that could be used, but was lacking tools, skill and strength, at this point I asked my friend Dave nicely if he wanted to help me out with a project. Within a few hours we had made an awesome sunset deck/daybed. Its fabulous!!!!!!!
I also spent some time tidying the shack, putting linen on the beds and taking photos for advertising material. It isn’t a hotel or anything fancy, but it is nice to be able to provide people some info and pictures about the place if they are considering renting it for a holiday. So I made a cool Utopia Flyer with a description, pics and info (if you want to have a holiday at Utopia..let me know!!!)
I did have one rather entertaining incident… while sitting in the backyard soaking up some sunshine, I could hear lots of birds twittering around the yard. Then I heard a bird behind me, it sounded like the bird went into the shack. Cautiously I went to investigate, and sure enough a bird had flown into the shack and was terribly distressed. It kept trying to fly out of a closed window (many of the windows of the shack are painted shut…we’re slowly but surely fixing this). So I was thinking, “oh no what do I do, how do I get it outside?” Every time I got within a metre of the bird I freaked out … for those who don’t know me, I have this stupid irrational fear of birds!!! So after trying to get the bird outside and freaking out every time I got near it, I went across the street to my friendly neighbour Richard. Lucky for me, Richard was home and had no fear when it came to birds. Within a few minutes me problem was solved! Phew!!
The lesson I learned from this experience… don’t leave the screen door open!
After a week of relaxing (and one brief incident of terror), it’s now time to return to reality, until the next adventure…
This has been my least exciting adventure to date…
At a few inconvenient times in my life, I received a notice in the mail requesting me to participate in jury service. On these occasions I was able to defer doing my jury service.
This year however, I received the notice once again and had no fantastic excuse. So it was time to do my duty.
Knowing that jury service was for three weeks and could continue longer if I was selected as a juror for a big case, I prepared three works worth of lessons for my classes (planned down to a T…knowing that I would have non-computing teachers teaching computing).
On March 8th I turned up to the Supreme Court, where they explained the procedure. We would turn up when told to, then a jury would be randomly selected. Once a jury was chosen the remaining people were expected to go back to work and continue on with daily life.
So every night I had to call the ‘Jury Hotline’ to find out if I was due back in the next morning, then send SMS’s to the teachers waiting to know whether they would be taking my classes.
After four appearances at the court house and being dismissed, on my fifth appearance my name was called…
Dutifully I headed to the court room and took my place in the jury box. The Judge then asked the two lawyers (prosecutor and defence?) if they wanted to dismiss anyone…and I was dismissed, sent to the back of the courtroom.
One by one, more potential jurors were called in, and either accepted or dismissed, until they had their final twelve.
Everyone who had been dismissed from that jury was sent home (to work) to play the waiting game again.
So after 3 weeks; hours of planning, hours of making appearances at the courtroom and lots of $$ on calls and SMSs – my jury service was a complete and utter waste of time!
When I was 16 my family did a road trip across the Nullarbor. When we were in South Australia my parents bought my brother a sky dive for his 18th birthday. I was so excited, I really wanted to do it too, but my parents said “When you turn 18….”
So I turned 18…and the opportunity never really came up. Then I wanted to sky dive over the great barrier reef and I would have to save heaps of money, so it still never happened.
So finally at the age of 27 I said bugger it, I’m not going to hold out for anywhere more scenic, I am just going to do it in Tassie.
In April 2010 was when I decided I was just going to go for it, then my cousin decided to come visit me from NL, so I asked if she wanted to come with me. Which she did. So we booked ourselves in for a skydive from 10,000ft over Swansea with SkyDive Tasmania.
Going up in the plane took 20 minutes, and I wasn’t too nervous, more excited. As we got to the right height the door opened and the air rushing past was so loud!!! I watched as my cousin got rolled out the door…I was just getting more and more excited. Then my tandem dude and I got up to the door, I put my feet out and then we were tumbling rapidly in the direction of the ground. It was so much fun, the wind rushing past, the freedom of falling…INSANE!!!!
After 45 seconds of freefall we pulled the chute and took the time to absorb the atmosphere, the experience and the view. It was absolutely stunning!! An amazing view of Coles Bay and The Hazards.
I found the whole experience to be exhilarating, a heap of fun and surprisingly fairly relaxing.
My friend Tim was most disappointed that he didn’t get to join in the fun..so some months later in December it was time for another jump!
December 29th we booked ourselves in for a Hobart skydive. All excited and ready to go, we turned up, but unfortunately for us it was too cloudy and rainy. So, disappointed we headed home and had to wait until the next day to try again.
December 30th, we turned up again. The sky was a bit cloudy, but there were enough gaps in the clouds to get the go ahead. So we kitted up and headed to the airport.
It took around 30 mins to get to height, and then to find a hole in the clouds. On this occasion I was the first to be out of the plane.
So at height, we opened the door. Again the deafening sound of air rushing past the door. The air was a lot colder this time, and skydiving over a city really puts the height into perspective. I put my left foot out of the plane and was suddenly overcome with that feeling of “Oh crap!! Not sure I am ready for this!”
Suddenly I was tumbling through the icy cold air at some phenomenal speed. All the buildings were getting closer and closer at such a fast pace!!
After a full minute of freefall, we pulled the chute…and suddenly things were a little calmer. Seeing Hobart from above was such an interesting experience..it all looked so different. It was quite windy and the air was chilly, but we slowly made our way back to the ground. Again it was an amazing view and loads of fun!
Comparing the two jumps I noticed a few differences.
Both times I wore earrings, but jumping from the higher altitude, my earlobes were flapping around in the wind and it felt like my earlobes were tearing off the side of my head – it hurt!!!!!
I was astounded at just how much more terrifying it was the second time – I thought it would be less scary, but I was very wrong!!!
Oh yeah – had a serious case of cotton mouth both times!
It was yet another fantastic adventure in my life, and I got to share both experiences with amazingly wonderful people.
Since I am only just starting to record some of my adventures, I am going to go back in time..but to be fair on you I will summarise the older less recent ones.
